Saturday, 22 January 2011

Review of 'Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Story' Part 2

It is generally accepted by Ripperologists that the Whitechapel murderer was disturbed at Dutfield's Yard, and narrowly escaped (it has also been suggested that Stride is not a canonical victim). This view is supported here in part two, by examining Schwartz's eyewitness account, and it's coverage by The Star newspaper. The report highlighted his actual sighting of the attacker pushing Stride by the shoulders into the yard. The Ripper then fled and found his second victim of the night at Mitre Square in the City, and Catherine Eddowes was slain. The discovery of Eddowes' bloodied apron and the graffito at Goulston Street is now described as a missed opportunity by the police, by theorising that the killer could have been based in the Dorset Street vicinity.

No further attacks occured in October 1888, but George Lusk received the 'From Hell' letter with a grisly parcel: half of a human kidney (supposedly missing from Eddowes' body). Then in November (on the very day of Sir Charles Warren's resignation), the series culminated in the savage butchery of Mary Kelly, when the Ripper was free to kill indoors for the only time.

Press attention waned in the months after this final murder, but the police investigation continued, and some suspects were still surveilled, until the case was officially closed in 1892. Contemporary Ripper candidates included: Francis Tumblety, MJ Druitt, and Aaron Kosminski, and since then many more suspects, theories, and conspiracies have been posited.

NB. Two more experts appeared in part 2: Criminal psychiatrist Dr. Lars Davidsson, and Donald Swanson's grandson, Nevel Swanson. The Definitive Story is a Bulls Eye Lantern production for Five.